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Fear over future of rural GPs

Hundreds of people have packed into a school hall in Coniston to discuss the future of GP surgeries in the village and nearby Hawkeshead. Under new government guidelines, both practices will lose out on funding, which may force them to close.

MP: "The support rural surgeries need is cheap"

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, told a meeting over the future of rural GP practices that the answer was "quite simple".

He said: " What we need is a block grant to support small GP surgeries, unit by unit. There are only 50-60 surgeries in England, which need help, so the attractiveness to the government is that it is cheap."